[Dovecot] IDLE command timeout

[Sim Harbert]

It isn't a matter of the client being broken.  My Treo client properly 
reconnects when the IDLE command is disconnected due to the timeout, but 
this means it has to reconnect every 30 minutes.  I want to avoid the 
overhead of reconnecting all the time and just stay connected.  The 
reconnections chew up battery life since they involve a lot more 
wireless network activity than being in IDLE mode.

The "outlook-idle" workaround doesn't help, since it requires a 
reconnect with the server.  Well, maybe it wouldn't require a full 
reconnect, so I suppose it might be a tiny bit better than the actual 
IDLE disconnect.

I believe the 'mailbox_idle_check_interval' just gives the minimum time 
between when the server will notify the client of changes.  If set to 30 
seconds, that would mean that if mail came 10 seconds apart, then client 
wouldn't be notified of the second email until 30 seconds after the 
first.  (This is all just based on the short description in the 
configuration file...)

Is there more extensive documentation of the configuration settings 
somewhere?  The website doesn't document the configuration options.

-Sim

Chris Wakelin wrote:

> Isn't this "mailbox_idle_check_interval"?
>
> # Like mailbox_check_interval, but used for IDLE command.
> #mailbox_idle_check_interval = 30
>
> It might be better to use "imap_client_workarounds = outlook-idle" 
> instead. This pretends a new message has arrived just before the 
> timeout then says it was deleted. Your client is very broken if that 
> doesn't wake it up!
>
> Best Wishes,
> Chris
>
> Sim Harbert wrote:
>
>> Is it possible to change the IDLE command timeout to be more than 30 
>> minutes?  I have a client on my PalmOne Treo 600 which will stay in 
>> IDLE mode as long as it can.  I would like to set the timeout to 
>> something much higher than 30 minutes.  Maybe several hours or even 
>> more.
>>
>> I don't see a configuration setting for this value in 
>> "/etc/dovecot.conf".  Am I missing something?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> -Sim
>
>

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